To Hell and Back (Hellcat Series Book 4) (8 page)

“
So, have new Princeps been appointed yet?” Trish asked in a
low voice.

“
The nominees have been contacted and have accepted their
nominations. Fortunately Julius managed to avoid that particular
fate, though it seems inevitable that it’ll come up at some point
in the future,” Gabi told her in an equally low tone. “They’ve
passed some new laws even in the absence of a full
Court.”

Trish raised her eyebrows, intrigued.

“
The first was to outlaw the Turning of any person under the
age of sixteen, with no exceptions. Between the ages of sixteen and
twenty-one Turning is discouraged unless there is no other option;
in other words, the person is dying. The penalty is death. All
vampires have to ‘register’ any underage Vampires they already have
in their Clans and Houses or any underage rogues that they know of.
They’ve also passed a law preventing any Vampire trying to conceive
a Dhampir. This one also carries an instant death sentence. All
Masters have been informed of the existence of a Dhampir, without
any details being given, as well as of the agreement to magically
seal the secret away in case of future need of it. Experimentation
is now strictly prohibited, and I am under the express protection
of the Princep Council. By Vampire standards I am untouchable.”
Gabi grimaced. They all knew she would be under constant threat for
the foreseeable future.

“
Has anything more come of the Oracles’ visions?” Trish asked,
eyes wide.

“
No, nothing more than that Mariska is in league with the
Devil or the Devils’ Court,” Gabi replied. “Whoever she’s teamed up
with this time is definitely some kind of threat to the Magi, and
they’re very good at shielding. I think the Magi have more of an
idea who it could be than they’re letting on, but they’re keeping
mum at this stage. I guess when things get too hot for them to
handle, they’ll come and demand help.”

“
That woman sure is a trouble-stirrer,” Trish commented,
shaking her head.

“
Yeah,” Gabi agreed, “if it wasn’t for what she’d already done
to the City and to me, I’d be tempted to leave the Magi to deal
with her, but I have a personal score to settle with the bitch, and
I intend to make her pay up.” Her eyes flashed in anger. Mariska
needed to meet her maker sooner rather than later, and Gabi had
every intention of hastening that appointment.

“
Speaking of scores to settle.” Trish leaned forward across
the table. “Have you heard anything about Caspian?” Her eyes were
wide with curiosity. “I couldn’t believe it when Kyle told me he
just vanished before you left the Princeps’ Court. Julius has had
me trying to find him, but he’s never been one to leave an
electronic trail.”

Gabi sighed. Caspian, the Spanish Vampire who’d sworn fealty
to Julius just before their trip to the Princeps’ Court, was also
technically her Sire. He was another headache she was trying to
avoid aggravating. Between the story she’d heard at Court about
Caspian’s history, her own suspicions about his grip on sanity, and
his mysterious disappearance, she was almost hoping he’d managed to
get himself killed off somehow and that it wouldn’t have to be her
or Julius who had the dubious honour.

“
I haven’t heard anything,” Gabi told her at last. “I’m not
sure he’ll show his face around here again. Though his fealty to
Julius should pull him back regardless of his intentions. I guess
we’ll deal with him if he turns up, though what Julius intends to
do about him, I’m not sure.”

An elderly couple shuffled up to the table nearest them and
sat down with twin sighs of relief. They gave the two women polite
smiles and took menus from the waitress. “You also have to tell me
more about the Princep Court,” Trish pressed. “Kyle’s hardly told
me anything. Was it really a proper castle, and did it really have
secret passageways?” She broke off as she glanced over and realised
the elderly couple at the next table were close enough to hear
their conversation and were doing a bad job of pretending not to
listen to them.

“
Hey, there’s usually an ice-cream van down at the dock on
sunny days.” Gabi quickly filled the silence. “Let’s go grab a
gelato.”

Gabi was sorely tempted to spend the rest of the afternoon
soaking up the sun and chatting with Trish, but a chime on her
phone reminded her that her accountant had been begging for
paperwork for weeks, and her tax deadline was looming. Sadly, even
ferocious Vampire slayers had to jump when the tax man called. She
had to make a trip into the City centre the following day to take
everything her accountant had asked for, and she wasn’t even close
to sorting it out yet. Her office was a maelstrom of paperwork that
needed to be filed. So she reluctantly hugged Trish goodbye,
promising to join her and Kyle for dinner over the weekend, and
drove the borrowed Audi home.

The pets were happy to see her as Rose had already finished up
and left for the day. She continued to procrastinate over the
paperwork and used Roman’s need for some exercise as an excuse to
go for a mind-clearing run with the Rottweiler. The sun was already
ducking behind the horizon and her stomach was growling when she
finally traipsed to her office to do the inevitable.

She should’ve taken Rocky with her on the run, she reflected
an hour later as she tried to arrange papers into folders, with the
tiny furry speedster tearing up and over the desk, knocking
stationery flying and scattering stacks of paperwork on the ground
in disorderly heaps.

“
You’re lucky you’re too cute to yell at,” she groused at the
tiny terrorist, picking up yet another stack of papers from the
floor. The sound of her phone beeping was actually welcome for
once.

“
I have food, and I’m on my way to fetch you,” purred Julius’s
silky voice over the phone. A small shiver raced down her
spine.

“
Where are we going?” Gabi asked, grasping at any excuse to
escape her current torture.

“
We had an invitation to visit Savannah at her lab. I thought
we’d take her up on it,” he replied.

“
Oh,” Gabi said, surprise rendering her temporarily
speechless. She remembered the invitation, but hadn’t thought
they’d be taking it up quite so soon.

“
Be ready to go in twenty,” Julius said, his tone mild, but
Gabi could feel his amusement at her consternation. “And don’t
forget that Savannah wanted to meet Razor. If you think he’d enjoy
the outing, bring him along.”

CHAPTER 6

The ‘lab’ was nothing like Gabi was expecting. Perhaps the
memory of Jason King’s macabre laboratory, set up to clone the
Lycanthropy virus, was still too fresh in her mind. While the
exterior of this one looked something along the lines of a rural
barn, the interior was more like what she’d expect to find in a
world-class medical research lab. All white tiles, glass and
stainless steel. Meticulously clean and illuminated by bright,
modern lighting. The large central area of the lab was big enough
to accommodate half a dozen cars, and did at that moment have two,
sans doors and some other body panels, standing off to one
side.

Along one side were smaller, glass-walled cubicles. Gabi
counted six in total, each one with an array of microscopes,
computers, Petri dishes, glass tubes, various jars of what Gabi
assumed were chemicals, and dozens of electronic instruments that
Gabi couldn’t put names to. Two of the cubicles were occupied by
women; one was a Vampire and the other was a Shifter if Gabi’s
Vamp-sense was on target. One was jotting notes onto an electronic
tablet, and the other was studying something under a microscope. To
one side stairs led to a mezzanine level, which appeared to be
storage of some kind. A bank of insulated and, in some cases,
refrigerated shipping containers lined the upper floor. Gauges and
blinking lights adorned most of them, and a mechanical hoist, big
enough to move an entire car, stood motionless against the far
wall.

“
Wow,” was all Gabi could force out of her mouth as she tried
to take it all in. Though she didn’t glance at him, she knew Julius
had an amused smile on his face.

“
Julius,” Savannah’s effusive voice came from their right,
“and Gabi. May I call you Gabi, my dear?” The grey-haired woman was
suddenly in front of them, moving with that unnerving speed that
Vampires unaccustomed to being around humans often
displayed.

“
Yes, of course,” Gabi agreed quickly, still a little
shell-shocked.

“
Oh, and you brought the cat,” Savannah enthused, dropping to
her haunches to study Razor.

Razor didn’t puff up and growl at her, which was unusual
enough for Gabi to send out a questioning thread towards his mind.
He had no fear of the bubbly woman, only curiosity, Gabi
discovered, relieved she wouldn’t need to defuse the situation.
Taking him out with her more regularly was certainly teaching him
better social etiquette. He still didn’t take to Werewolves very
well, but others he treated with indifference until they proved
either friend or foe.

Savannah reached out to him. “Would he allow me to stroke him,
do you think?” she asked, her gaze so intense on Razor that she
could’ve been measuring him up with her eyes.

Gabi didn’t know whether to be alarmed by her scrutiny.
Julius’s mind brushed hers softly, a gentle touch of reassurance;
he trusted Savannah implicitly. It also served as a reminder to
Gabi that Savannah was a mind reader; she quickly bolstered her
mental defences.

“
Uh, just put your hand out. Let him come to you,” Gabi
suggested, sending Razor a mild ‘be nice’ thought.

He glanced up at her, blinking slowly; then he moved forward a
few steps and butted his head against Savannah’s steady,
outstretched hand. He moved closer and rubbed against her white lab
coat.

“
You can pet him now if you like,” Gabi offered, a little
surprised by Razor’s easy acceptance of the Vampire. Savannah did,
at first stroking his head and then progressing around his
shoulders and down his back.

“
Hmm,” Savannah said with a thoughtful air. “I shall have to
make some adjustments for his size. He’s bigger than I would’ve
thought possible. The odds of exactly the right combination of
DNA…” She trailed off, giving Razor a final pat before rising.
“Come along. I have so much to show you.” It was clear she was in
her element and delighted to have them in her domain. She was
almost bouncing as she led the way to one of the cubicles near the
rear of the building. Both the lab technicians glanced their way as
they passed, but neither seemed overly surprised to see two
strangers and an overly large cat in their workplace.

The cubicle Savannah led them to was a lot less tidy than the
others Gabi had peeked into; bits of what looked like scrap leather
lay in heaps on the floor while precise cut-outs adorned the
pristine, white countertops. Knives, daggers and swords lay piled
and crisscrossing the large central counter alongside baths of
chemicals and pages of handwritten notes on large sheets of thick
paper. A whiteboard dominated the wall on one side of the room, and
there was barely space to put a finger amongst the chemical symbols
and complex equations scrawled across it.

Savannah swept to the far counter, the one with all the
leather cut-outs, and then turned back to them. “Does he have a
name, your cat?”

“
Yes, of course,” Gabi replied. “His name is Razor, but I
usually call him Raz.”

Savannah smiled brightly. “Razor, of course. That suits him
perfectly. Would Razor mind getting on this counter and letting me
fit something to him?”

Gabi quirked an eyebrow. The inventor Vampire had designed
something for Razor?

“
Oh, don’t worry,” Savannah said quickly, misinterpreting
Gabi’s look. “I won’t harm him. I heard that he was injured once
before when fighting off demons, and I thought I could make him
something that would protect him in the future.”

Gabi was finding it hard to merge this animated, almost
hyperactive person with the composed, elegant woman she’d met just
a few days ago at the Consort ceremony.

“
Something to protect him?” Gabi asked as she patted the
counter and gave Razor a tiny mental nudge. “You mean like
armour?”

Razor obliged by jumping lithely up on the counter and
sniffing the bits of leather inquisitively.

“
Yes, exactly like armour,” Savannah agreed approvingly. “I’ve
been working on treating tanned hide with the same compound I used
on your car. I’ve had to make some tweaks to get it to adhere to
the surface without making the leather as stiff as metal, but I
think I’ve almost got it.” As she spoke, she lifted what looked
like a pile of small leather patches, but once she picked it up,
Gabi could see that the patches were actually attached to a piece
of woven fabric, each patch slightly overlapping the next, like the
scales on a fish. “As I said, I’ll have to make some adjustments
for size, but I’d like to see how it moves on him if you think he
would let me put it on.”

Gabi nodded, reassuring Razor as a sudden warmth for this
slightly eccentric Vampire suffused her. This vampire that she
barely knew had spent hours, possibly days or weeks, designing
something to keep Razor safe. Julius, busy inspecting the pile of
weapons, tried to keep a smile from his face. Gabi shot him a
surreptitious ‘don’t push it’ glare.